


Concerning the Language of Birds

by regshoe



Category: Piranesi - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Birds, Gen, Post-Canon, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28244664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regshoe/pseuds/regshoe
Summary: Sarah Raphael gets to know the inhabitants of the House.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 21
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Concerning the Language of Birds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theseatheseatheopensea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseatheseatheopensea/gifts).



> Thanks to ianthebroome for beta reading!

The statues, standing layer upon layer all the way up the walls of the vestibule, dissolved at last into soft grey clouds. The actual distance was difficult to judge, but Sarah could have believed the clouds were as high as those she was used to elsewhere. Rain was falling from them. It ran over the faces and down the arms of the statues and formed puddles on the floor at her feet. For a few moments she stood gazing upwards, adjusting herself mentally to the place, letting the great empty spaces and the solitude establish themselves round her. Then, shaking her head, she walked rapidly onwards. It hadn't been raining in London, and she had not brought an umbrella.

She began by taking the old route through the labyrinth: the path which she had so carefully traced out when she first came here, marking the way and writing directions in chalk. This route was getting quite familiar now. Only this one—her knowledge of the other halls which led away from the first vestibule was still patchy, and she had no idea at all of how many of them there were, in that great echoing distance. She'd asked Matthew about it, a few weeks ago when they were talking about her visits here; he had said he didn't know, that he thought probably the halls went on for ever.

But she would have needed more chalk, if she had gone through one of those doorways instead.

However, she might safely go a little way off this path, just for a while. So, as she was approaching the end of the old route, near the doorway of the hall where she had read Matthew's messages on the floor, she went a different way, and turned instead into a corridor. 

The wall on one side of the corridor was lined with high windows looking out onto a paved courtyard; the rain, which fell outside just the same as in the vestibules, was sprinkled by the wind in little showers against the glass. There was no visible mechanism for opening any of the windows. Along the other wall were more statues. The theme of this corridor appeared to be woodland creatures: opposite the window where Sarah stood for a moment, a marble fox and a marble badger chased each other round the marble stump of an oak tree, and marble ivy climbed over the stump and the ground beneath the animals' feet and out onto the floor.

She stepped over a trailing stem of ivy and went through the doorway at the end of the corridor, which led into another vast hall. The sound of the rain had by now faded to a very faint whispering. Besides that, there were only her own footsteps on the stone floor, the distant sound of the sea beneath the halls—and, from up ahead, a rustle of beating wings.

Two dozen or so rooks were scattered over the statues that covered the wall before her. The weak, colourless daylight suited the scene very well: black birds with grey faces perched on statues of white marble, which were fouled here and there by black-and-white droppings. But the rooks' feathers defied the gloom, conjuring brilliant iridescent shades of green and purple from the movements the birds made, jostling for position on the statues and flapping their ragged wings.

'Hello,' said Sarah.

The rooks regarded her with their sharp black eyes. One of them gave a caw, harsh against the silence, and took flight away down the hall.

She had heard a great deal from Matthew about these birds: how he used to speak to them, and how they would give him messages by flying between statues which, he said, represented the ideas they wanted to convey. It was as believable as anything else about this place. But these were, as far as she could see, ordinary rooks, like you might see from a train window, feeding in a flock on a winter field. In any case they didn't seem to have any portents to send her today.

She turned away from the rooks, walked on into the hall and spent a while looking at the statues. There were more birds at the far end, little songbirds. They paid no attention to Sarah as she wandered about the hall, but as she was turning back towards the corridor a small flock of them took flight from the far wall and rushed past her head. Startled, she ducked to avoid them, but they had already manoeuvred round her, and now they wheeled about and landed on the statues that crowded above the great doorway. Reassured, Sarah watched them idly for a few moments. One of them—some sort of thrush, she thought—had a little metal ring round its leg, of the sort that scientists used to identify wild birds and track their migration and return; of the sort, in fact, that some scientist had clearly placed on the leg of this particular bird when it was in the other world...

*

She told Matthew about it, the next time they met up.

'Yes,' he said, nodding thoughtfully, 'it must have flown in from this world. I know they do—did I ever tell you about the albatrosses? There were two albatrosses that flew into the labyrinth and made their home there, not long before you came. I saw them arrive.'

'They must have come a long way,' said Sarah. Surely there were no wild albatrosses anywhere near here; but evidently the halls of the labyrinth were not only to be reached from London.

'Yes—though I didn't think of that at the time, of course. You know, one of Matth—one of my sisters goes bird-ringing at the weekends sometimes, as a hobby. I suppose she'd know about it.'

'We can hardly ask her.'

'No... Piranesi was quite keen on doing scientific research in the labyrinth, I remember. I believe there is still a great deal more to be learnt about it.'

'I'm sure there is.'

The look he gave her at that was a strange one. It was slightly concerned—he still thought she visited the labyrinth too often, she knew—but it was a little wistful, too.

Her way back took her along the edge of Regent's Park. As she turned a corner of the path she heard a little sound, distinct against the background noise of people laughing and talking and hurrying along the paths around her, and stopped to listen—then turned back and peered into the bush from where the sound seemed to come. Half-hidden by the thick, glossy evergreen leaves was a thrush, just like the one she had seen in the labyrinth, with gentle dark eyes and warm brown feathers. It was singing to itself very quietly in short phrases, as if practising its song for the coming spring. Upon its leg was a small metal ring.

On the far side of the row of bushes the streets were full of traffic, and the lights of buses, taxis and bikes made a colourful confusion in the dim afternoon. The air smelt of petrol fumes and wet leaves, and the hurrying crowds still jostled round her on the path. Everywhere was motion, colour and noise. They were not very pleasant surroundings, and could hardly have been less like the other world; but, as Sarah turned back towards them, she was aware that something of that world had stayed with her. Heading on towards the main road, there was a part of her which remained somewhere else, somewhere inside her, watching from a quiet place a long way away.

Perhaps it had brought her a message, after all.

She walked on.

**Author's Note:**

> ...There is nothing else in magic but the wild thought of the bird as it casts itself into the void. There is no creature upon the earth with such potential for magic. Even the least of them may fly straight out of this world and come by chance to the Other Lands.  
> — _Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell_


End file.
